


Return

by Sapphire_Princess



Category: Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Discussions of Past Trauma, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Meg is an awesome friend, Multi, They also have a daughter, vauge premis of love never dies but no one actually dies, very vaugue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24705973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphire_Princess/pseuds/Sapphire_Princess
Summary: When Raoul offered himself up in place of Christine all those years before none of them could have know where it would lead. It had brought the three of them together for one night but Christine and Raoul had never stopped searching for their phantom, hoping to be reunited once again.Now, they're on a boat, with their children, on their way to Coney Island and to a reunion they've long wanted and craved.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Christine Daaé/Raoul de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé, Raoul de Chagny/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 10
Kudos: 91





	1. Convergence

**Author's Note:**

> I disliked Love Never Dies but thought the general premise held some promise. One thing lead to another and here we are.

Raoul doesn’t like the ocean. 

He feels smaller than he ever has, surrounded by a vast and endless blue; the chatter of the other passengers fading against the sounds of the ship moving through the water.

“Papa!” A small bundle of yellow fluff slams into his legs and he gathers himself, bending down to pick her up.

“Meg, my dear, what have we told you about running on deck?” he chides gently.

His three-year-old scowls for a moment before she starts to giggle. “Mama and Gus were too slow!”

Raoul pats her head fondly and presses a kiss on her cheek. 

Christine, and their son, Gus, arrive a minute or so later.

“The captain says we should make port later this afternoon.”

“Good,” he says, though he sees the same worry he has in her eyes. It’s taken them years to get here and despite being invited, he’s not sure whether they’ll be able to make it before their true motives are discovered.

Guess comes to stand at his father's side, accepting the arm around him with love instead of the reluctance that will no doubt arrive in less than a year.

Meg lets herself be transferred to Christine and snuggles closer to her mother as the family looks ahead.

Raoul thinks he might be imagining it but there seems to be land on the horizon at last.

***  
The children are asleep and cuddled together on the chaise lounge of their suite. Even so, Christine and Raoul talk in whispers.

“It’s been over 10 years. I know that we’ve been hoping he…” Christine can’t bring herself to finish it.

“You have more to hope for than I, my love.”

“I don’t know.” She looks over at their children. “It is all too much to hope for. I feel selfish.”

Raoul rubs her arm. “We are. But it isn’t only about that. If he misses you as much as we do him, surely, surely it’s worth trying.”

“Raoul. I don’t think your feelings are so unrequited as you think. He let you inside him and I saw the way he kissed you.” These words were once too precious and scandalous for them to speak but time and searching have reduced them to a simple truth; their marriage is lacking the part of their hearts they’ve been searching for.

“I can’t help but think it was because of what he finally got to have with you; that I was an acceptable compromise.”

Christine shakes her head. “I disagree but we’ll know soon enough.”

***

They accept the carriage and their room. Raoul sits sipping wine as Gus tries to teach Meg piano. She plays well enough when she concentrates but she’d rather dance around the room when she gets bored.

Luckily for her, Gus adores his sister and plays for her as she prances around.

“I’ve sent a telegram to Meg letting her know we’ve arrived. She’s excited to see the children again.” It is then that she notices the toy set on the table. “Is that..?”

“Yes.”

“Gus is playing from the music he left as well.”

“I thought it was new.”

Little Meg lets Raoul pick her up and hold her up so only her toes touch his legs. Her eyes are bright but he can tell she’s exhausted; only the adrenalin of their new surroundings keeping her awake.

“You need to go to bed, my little love.” She scrunches up her nose. “But the sooner you sleep the sooner it will be tomorrow.”

“Coney Island?” she asks.

“Yes, we’ll go to Coney Island tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

Raoul chuckles and hugs her to him. “Come on, I’ll take you to bed. Gus? You should have a bath now.”

“Okay Papa,” he agrees, kissing his mother on the cheek, then his sister, hugging Raoul before running off.

Christine strokes her daughter’s head. “Papa will read you a story tonight, my dear.”

Meg nods, yawning as her exhaustion starts to take over.

Then she’s alone. Waiting, hoping her nervousness is misread if, as she hopes, he’s watching.

***  
_It wasn’t supposed to be this way; he wasn’t supposed to watch Christine sing with the Phantom and desire them both._

_He wasn’t supposed to wonder how it felt to have those arms run down his own. Shame burns in him because Christine doesn’t want to be there and even if he’d willingly put himself in her place but isn’t him the Phantom wants._

***  
_Erik is used to torment and pain. Used to the cruelty of the world he’s let twist his soul when it became too much to fight._

_He is dark and knows he’s monstrous because of his actions not his looks but it’s easier to exist down in the dark and be what is easiest._

_Then Christine; the voice for his music and the only light in his life, appeared and things started to change._

_He had thought only to perform with her then let her go, but watching her sing with Raoul brought a wave of anguish and jealously so strong he’d snatched her away._

_He watches her cry now, cry and shake on the steps to his alter of music. He wants what she’ll offer to another freely and doesn’t understand why she can’t love him instead._

_“Christine!”_

_Erik turns to see Raoul running towards them, stricken and anguished. He wonders what it would feel like to have someone look at him like that, to risk everything for the one they love and is loved by in return._

_It doesn’t stop him from pulling the noose._

_“Let her go, Phantom. You can take me instead,” Raoul shouts at him._

_Ice-fire flashes through him. “And what would you give me?” he snarls. He ignores Christine’s shout of “No!”_

_“Whatever you wanted. Unconditionally if you let her have her freedom.”_

_He laughs. “Do you think you could satisfy me? I’d lavish her with my love but you? I’d want to destroy you.”_

_“If Christine is safe then you may do as you will.”_

_“Raoul!” she cries._

_“Christine, your life is worth more than mine and I won’t see you trapped against your will.”_

_“Enough,” Erik shouts, stepping in front of Raoul. “I am a monster.”_

_“I won’t contradict you.”_

_“No, but will you have me?”_

_Raoul’s eyes meet his - determined and afraid. Fear is good, fear he knows. He takes hold of the noose and uses it to pull him closer. “I’d have you, I’d defile you.”_

_Raoul’s pupils dilate and as Erik watches he shivers with want. Raoul notices and his smile curves. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”_

_Erik snarls then lunges, pressing his mouth to Raoul’s and shoves his tongue into his throat._

***

_“Raoul, I can’t let you do this, sacrifice this for me.”_

_His smile looks so sad. “If it will soothe you, I am not unwilling. Something within me wants this with him,” he admits._

_“Even now that you have seen my face? The scars that track my arms and back?” the Phantom asks._

_Raoul shakes his head. “You are the monster the world has made you. Does my desire for the touch of a man disgust you?” he speaks to the Phantom but his eyes are on Christine. “I do not love you any less, Christine, and I long for you as much as I ever have. But I have craved a man’s touch more than once over the years. This will not be so terrible.”_

_“But-“_

_He reaches for her and kisses her forehead, her nose, her lips. Their captor watches him do this._

_“There is no contest. I will give myself over for you and sink myself into my desires.” He turns to The Phantom. “You can control my thoughts, make me think only of you? That would be my other request.”_

_Christine is shaking her head chanting “No, no, no. Raoul, no. And you!” she turns. “All this talk of loving me yet you would accept him?”_

_“You will never love me, Christine. I realise that now. At least your love desires me. I will give him what he has requested.”_

_Her sobs wrack her body and she steps closer, kissing Raoul with all she has, ignoring the firm hand clamped on both their shoulders._

_“If you accept him then accept us both. I can bare an eternity in the dark if he is with me.” She takes as deep a breath as she can manage. “Neither of you know my desires as well as you think,” Christine says, before kissing the Phantom whilst keeping her hands on Raoul._

***  
_Erik could have kept them, knows he was capable of coercing Raoul’s mind to love only him, to desire and want._

_But after they’d let him explore their bodies, love with them, and experience hours of pleasure at their mercy…. he can’t._

_Somewhere along the way, their touches became fond, and both reached for him as often as each other._

_He burns with the shame of what he’d planned on taking by force. He will only destroy them if he allows them to stay._

_And minute by minute he hears the approach of the hoard coming for them; his defenses have held up well but soon it will be time to flee._

_Christine is asleep, curled up into him on his good side. Raoul is on his other. His lack of disgust at Erik’s appearance is why he’d taken his offer so seriously; maybe he really does see his desire for a male touch as well as a female’s as the marking of a monster but it is not._

_No one who loves as intensely as Raoul and Christine can be a monster; not with so much selflessness and sacrifice. He may love but it is a dark thing, cloying and desperate to consume._

_He wakes them both with warm kisses, holding them to him as the weak stream of light flickers in through the grate._

_“It is morning. You both need to leave. They are coming for me.”_

_“Leave?” Christine asks, clearly horrified._

_“Yes. Both of you. You have paid the cost for your freedom. Go.”_

_They both protest and twice he almost falters but he isn’t worthy of them. Not as he is, maybe never at all._

_“Leave here now, before I make you,” he warns, removing himself from their arms and picking up both the ring he’d tried to give to Christine and another he’d bought on his travels. The ring he had hoped would be his match for his love’s._

_He places them both into their hands, kissing each of them one last time. “Go!”_

_Christine, tears in her eyes and hastily dressed, shakes her head. “But we could-“_

_“No, you can’t. I have killed too many and hurt others. You must leave and love each other.”_

_Raoul takes off one of his many rings and shoves it onto Erik’s thumb._

_“You can come with us,” he says, knowing the battle is already lost._

_“Take Christine and go.” He shoves them away and waits until he knows they’re gone before attempting to slip himself away to safety. Part of him doesn’t really know why he bothers, but something in the way they looked at him means he wants to try to live, to become something better._

****  
Christine and Raoul had spent their first weeks of freedom in a frantic state. Caught between relief at being free, grief at the possible loss of the Phantom, and the after-effects of the trauma they’ve suffered.

Never in her 19 years in this world had she been so confused but at least she had Raoul, and he her.

She remembers his quiet, bitter confessions, of the pull he felt towards the phantom, of the desire he’d felt in him for them both.

They marry shortly afterward but do not consummate it until Christine is certain she’s with child - the phantom’s child.

When he was born they both cried over him, kissed him and loved him. He was their’s as much as another and though he was conceived during a night of twisted love and emotion, he is still wanted. He is needed because he might be the only thing left of the ghost that passed through their lives and threw them on this new course.

“If he is alive we will find him,” Raoul had promised her then.

They had never stopped looking, spending fortunes following leads, inventing a gambling habit to cover it.

The birth of their daughter, Meg, marked a bright part of their lives. Raoul hadn’t been sure he could produce a child but she’s so bright with life that it doesn’t matter how many years they’d spent trying. Hoping for her as much as their Phantom.

And they are, once again, in the city, near the theatre, in which he resides.

The room falls silent, still. She strains her ears for the sound of something, anything.

“Please,” she whispers. “If you are there, if you can hear me, show yourself.”

Nothing but silence greets her.

***  
Meg and little Meg are off dancing on the stage within minutes of meeting each other. Meg knows of their search and it was her suggestion that brought them to Coney Island in the first place. She’s become a star in her own right and gives credit to her ‘teacher’, which was all Christine and Raoul needed to know.

Gus hangs back with his mother, looking around the theatre with awe.

“Is there a piano?” he asks her.

“I would think so, yes,” she says. “Would you like to play?”

“Please, yes.”

They walk around until they find one -the Megs and Raoul playing on stage - towards the back.

She adjusts the stool for Gus and sits stands, her hand resting on the piano as he plays.

Growing up in a theatre he had his pick of teachers and instruments. He seems to have taken to the piano, no doubt because of the easy access, and unlike the violin or cello, he can play it as it is without needing a smaller version.

Christine sits with him after a time, humming along with the music he’s playing.

“Mama?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you looking for someone?”

She hides her sad smile under her hand before answering him. “Papa and I knew someone once that we both loved very much and sometimes I find myself hoping they’re nearby.”

“Papa does too. Is that why he sometimes hugs me and Meg extra-tightly? We won’t go anywhere.”

“I know, you won’t.” she swallows. “We really miss him.”

“Is that why we’re here?” Gus is a very perceptive child, which she actually thinks he’s picked up from Raoul, rather than being inherited.

“It is part of it. We also wanted to see Meg and New York. And we thought you might like here too.”

“I do. So far. And I love Aunty Meg.” He stops playing and turns to her. “I hope you find him, Mama. You and Papa. If you do can we meet him? Me and Meg?”

She strokes his hair. “Of course, Gustave. I’d like that very much.”

***

Raoul goes to the bar. 

He doesn’t intend to do anything other than take a moment to consider that they might have failed.

Meg has said she’s sure he knows they’re here and confirmed their suspicions about the music and the toy; only the latter was meant for their children. But Raoul is starting to think that either he’s in the way of what the Phantom wants or he’s avoiding them because he still thinks they’re better off without him.

So, he nurses one whiskey carefully long enough for most of the other patrons to clear out.

“I was told I’d find you here,” a long-ago-familiar voice rasps quietly.

“Told? we’ve been trying to get your attention since the moment we arrived in port. Thank you for the carriage, it was appreciated.”

“You’re drinking.”

“I am.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“That depends on whether or not you believe our ruse.”

“It is more plausible than the two of you bringing your family to settle across the ocean for the sake of one night.”

“You create the seemingly impossible with your talents and you deny that this is possible?” Raoul asks him, throwing his arms up.

The phantom sneers but it doesn't seem to match the expression in his eyes.

“What revenge could you be planning that you’d go this far?”

“Revenge?” Raoul steps back, surprised. “For what?”

“For what I did to you, what I drove you both to.”  
“Is that what you think we’ve been doing all these years? Planning revenge? The world made you the monster you were - the scared, frightened child-turned-tortured-genius - who threatened us.”

“What do you know?!”

“We know you were used for your talents as an architect then turned on in case you did the same for someone else. I know not all of your scars are a result of your birth.”

Raoul watches shock and shame replace the rage from moments before.

“How did you find out about that?” the phantom grits out.

“Meg and her mother pointed us in the right places, the rest we’ve been uncovering on our own.”

“But why would you do that? Why come here?”

“Because we were bereft after that night.”

The phantom shakes his head. “No. No. I… I manipulated Christine, I killed people for petty, petty things… I was a hateful monster.”

Raoul nods in agreement. “Yes, you were. But those same people would have killed you on sight… I’m, we’re not here to absolve you of your past but not a day has gone by when we haven’t wished we could find you again.” 

The bar has cleared out since their argument started - in french- but how close they are to a fistfight is probably obvious by tone alone.

Raoul looks at him, his eyes that always seem to change colour with the light, the skin around his mask that looks healthier than he remembers. The years have been kind to this man who had before rarely seen sunlight.

The phantom sneers at him but Raoul won’t be cowed without the truth.

With a flash of a cloak he hadn’t known the phantom was wearing, Raoul is surrounded by darkness and pulled; he goes willingly and hears the dark laugh of surprise in response.

They’re in a dark corridor that smells of wax polish and before he has time to look around there are fierce lips on his and a solid body pushing him against a wall.  
Raoul surges up into the kiss and latches his arms under the strong shoulders of his captor. He wishes he could remove the mask - it’s digging into his cheek and can’t be conformable for the phantom either - but Christine had told him what had happened when she had.

He thinks, maybe, that this is a test, that he’s only being kissed and held the way he is to scare him off but he’s so starved of this man’s touch that he will take anything he’s given until it’s taken away.

He pushes his hips forward so that there’s no way his clear interest can be mistaken and the phantom pants into his neck, a dark chuckle rumbling against his skin.

“A quick fuck in a dark corner from a man doesn’t count as missing me.”

“I wouldn’t have let anyone else lay a finger on me,” Raoul tells him, squeezing his good shoulder to let him know the damage he could do if he didn’t want to be there. 

“Hm, do you want me on my knees?” the phantom jokes cruelly.

“I want to see you.” There are lit gas lamps here so he can see well enough.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Raoul is caught between a laugh and a sob. “Careful wishes never got me very far.”

He feels the moment the hands on him turn tender, the deeper press of a mouth against his skin, lingering kisses traced up his neck and along his jaw.

“You can take it off.”

Raoul nods and moves a hand out from his fierce hold to find the clasps and remove it from his face. He traces his eyes across the skin beneath - he was right to think it healthier - he’s still disfigured and some might say terrifying but Raoul doesn’t care. 

He looks for somewhere to put the mask and lays it atop the shelf next to them, his eyes barely leaving the phantom’s face as he does.

“I’ve missed you,” he says honestly, tentatively touching the twisted scars on the other man’s cheek.

He’s being kissed again before he can say another word, pulled close and wrapped in strong arms, a hand supporting the back of his neck.

“Come with me”? The words are whispered against his skin and he nods, linking his hand with the phantom’s and following him down a corridor and up a flight of beautiful, carved stairs.

***


	2. Resonance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to anyone who has left comments ^^

Erik brings Raoul with him into his private rooms, throws open the curtains to show the night beyond the beautiful paneled windows and turns two of the lamps to low light.

“Did you paint that?” Raoul asks and Erik turns to see him looking at the portrait above the piano.

“No. I commissioned one of the artists from the company.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yes.” Raoul and Christine in the painting look ethereal and untouchable in their beauty and he wonders what it says about him that he’d wanted to be reminded of them and yet kept apart at the same time.

“You missed us as well.”

“I… I needed to be better. The way I was would have destroyed all of us but with help, with Meg and her mother’s guidance I’ve become…”

“Better?”

“A person.”

“For a long time Meg told us she knew where you were but couldn’t say. I understand why, now,” Raoul says.

“Did she help you with the ruse to come here?”

“She knew and didn’t stop us. She says you’ve been helping to train performers.”

Erik, still with Raoul’s hand in his, walks them to the ornate settee by the window.

“I… have been trying to find the good in people and help others find it in themselves. It has been a long ten years.”

“Ten and a half,” Raoul corrects.

“You counted?” 

“I don’t think you realise how it affected us,” Raoul tells him. “Yes, we were scared and Christine was traumatised, but that night together? That wasn’t nothing. I felt your affection, in time I’ve hoped it was love.” 

When Erik looks up he sees Raoul looking away from him, staring at the monkey he keeps by the piano.

“It was the start of it,” he admits. “I have thought of you both often, I followed Christine’s career… I was there at your daughter’s christening.”

“We’d have loved to see you.”

“I wasn’t ready. I don’t know that I’m ready now but… Raoul…” he drifts off at the frown he sees on the other man's face.

“Yes… I’m sorry, I was going to call you Phantom but you must have a name.”

“Erik. My name is Erik.”

“Yes, Erik?” There’s a lovely, small, hopeful smile on his face.

“You’re really here for me?”

“Yes.”

“And what if I were to deny you.”

Raoul looks away. “Then I suppose we’d find a way to make our peace with it, grieve you and return to Europe after our contract ends. But there is something we wish for you to know regardless of your decision regarding us. That we wish to tell you together.”

“I have been keeping myself from you for so long that I… I have been trying to hold myself back since you arrived.”

“Will you allow us to love you again, to know you as you are now?”

“Yes.” The word is no sooner out of his mouth than he’s leant over and pressed his mouth to Raoul’s, his free hand now tangled in his hair.

Raoul keens under Erik’s attentions - deep, deep kisses through which he’s trying to channel his need for this into his companion.

“Take me to bed? Please?” Raoul pleads against his ear when Erik’s attention goes to his neck.

“Won’t Christine mind?”

“No, she’ll be pleased.” He squeezes Erik’s hand and meets his eyes; shy apprehension alight in them.

“I gave you my ring, allowed you inside me, Raoul. And you… I… you deserved so much more then, and even more now.” He strokes Raoul’s hair. “Come then, my love.”

*

Raoul is shaking with nerves and delight as Erik, _Erik_ , helps him out of his clothes and removes his own. He’s allowed to map his skin with eager fingers, following scars he’s barely been able to keep within his memories, some faded, avoiding some that might still cause him pain.

“It’s alright, I’ve had them treated; they don’t hurt the way they used to,” Erik says, bending low to kiss his collar bone and the scars of his own; war wounds from one battle and nothing in comparison. Then he lingers over his heart. “So many of your scars are in here. Do you still feel shame for your desires?”

Raoul swallows, barely managing to shake his head as words evade him.

Erik trails kisses from his heart to his lips, sliding his arms underneath his armpits until they’re chest-to-chest, mouths exploring and hips pressed together.

They move together until their crescendo peaks, Erik perhaps a beat behind Raoul, who kisses him desperately as they finish.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s alright, my darling,” Erik soothes, stroking a thumb along his cheekbone. Raoul is only faintly aware he’s crying when he sees tears glint in the moonlight.

It brings the rest of the damn down with it and, after feeling a warm, wet cloth clean him, all he knows his the heartbeat of the man holding him close and the sheets wrapped around them.

***  
Christine came as soon as she got the note; Meg and Gus are with Meg - whose delighted to be spending the night with them at their apartment.

Meg had told her only that there had been a call to her mother and given instructions of how to get to where she was needed and the key.

She hauls up her skirts as she takes the stairs two at a time. 

The lock clicks smoothly when she turns and releases the key, the room she steps into welcoming and better lit than shows expecting.

Raoul lies curled against a form she’s seen in her dreams - and nightmares - over the years.

Her heart skips.

“He’ll be fine,” The phantom reassures her. “But he needs you right now.”

Christine is already removing most of her clothes until she’s in her smalls and rushing to the bed.

Raoul, his face tear-stained, and whole-body pressed to the phantom’s, turns his eyes on her and she slips under the covers, her arms around him in an instant.

“This isn’t how I imagined our reunion,” he rasps in their arms.

“What happened?” she asks.

“It, I.” Raoul shakes his head. “Don’t leave,” he begs.

“You already have my word,” The phantom soothes. “It’s going to be alright.” He looks to Christine but whether he means to share the promise with her or is looking for reassurance she can’t tell. It may well be both.

“I don’t think he knew what was happening,” the phantom says to her, the side of his face not usually covered by a mask peaking up over Raoul’s head as he looks at her. “I took him to bed and afterward I noticed the tears and he wouldn’t stop shaking.”

Christine nods and rubs Raoul’s arms. “It’s happened before. These episodes are less frequent now but they still happen.”

“Is there anything that can be done to prevent them?”

“Unless you can go back in time to erase his military career, I’m not sure.” She kisses her husband’s shoulder. “Raoul will tell you that he has lead a privileged life compared to so many others but he didn’t ever want to fight.”

“He saw something.”

“He saw many things and was beaten within an inch of his life for refusing direct orders.” She hopes the phantom can read between her words or wait until Raoul is asleep before asking for more information. 

But he seems to work it out with everything else he already knows, given the shift in his expression.

“Raoul, my love, you are safe here.”

“Erik.” his voice cracks.

Christine’s eyes lock with the phantom - Erik’s.

“I’ve accepted the proposal Raoul made on your behalf. I don’t think it will be easy; and there are children involved, but I won’t hide from you any longer.”

Christine accepts his words and the hand he settles on her arm, knowing now is likely not the time to explain how involved with that he is already.

“Rest,” he adds. “I will be here when you wake.”

***

Erik keeps his promise.

He orders baths to be prepared and leads them both through to them once they’re awake.

His own he takes at speed, so that he can care for Raoul as Christine settles into the third tub.

“Would you allow me?” he asks.

Raoul looks up at him, a weak smile on his face. “Please.”

After, he washes Christine’s hair, and wraps them both in the finest bathrobes he has. 

“Meg has sent over changes of clothes for you, there was a note this morning. She’s having breakfast with the children and will bring them to the theatre unless you contact her beforehand.”

Christine kisses his cheek and thanks him, looking at him in a way he both longs for and is wary of in equal measure.

“Thank you.”

He orders breakfast and is pleasantly surprised when Raoul sits himself down at his side, shuffling his chair over to be closer.

“It helps,” Christine explains. “If he’s close to someone who makes him feel safe.”

“But he has you.”

Raoul nudges Erik’s shoulder with his head. 

“And you. You’ve accepted him even after so long so right now, between the two of us, he should be fully recovered in a couple of hours.”

Christine places her hand on Raoul’s arm and her wedding ring flashes. Erik looks from it to Raoul’s.

“You used my rings.”

“We’ve barely taken them off. It felt wrong,” she explains. He wears the one Raoul gave him, the one reminder he’s kept on him all this time.

“But you’ve been happy?” he asks them both.

“Yes,” She says. “Very happy, but always with the hope, we’d find you again.”

“I don’t understand why. Meg has given hints but why? The things I did? They were twisted and cruel; wrong.”

“They were,” Christine agrees. “And yet that night we spent together felt like something else. Something so beautiful we haven’t ever been able to let go of it. I missed you, the hours we’d spend as you taught me to sing, the times when it felt as though we had a genuine connection…”

Raoul clears his throat and adds. “When I watched you both on stage, your duet made me feel things I didn’t know I could and when you kissed me it wasn’t with hate or rage, it was with affection and want.”

“We tried,” continues Christine. “To live our lives without you but we’ve never given up hope. We want to spend them with you, to have you be the part of our family you always should have been.”

Erik can’t find words for that, barely manages a nod before going back to his breakfast.

He has a family - of sorts - between Meg and her mother, the troupe he’s founded, and the acceptance of the genuine friends he’s made…

But he’s never stopped loving Christine, or Raoul. Missing them, wanting them… wanting a glimmer of their happiness and never feeling as though he deserves it.

He isn’t confined to the dark anymore but he still avoids the light. And, he realises, this is the longest he’s ever been in company without wearing his mask.

Raoul squeezes the hand he must have had on his leg for some time. “Would you rather we gave you some space?” he asks.

“No.” He pushes his finished plate away from him. “But yesterday you said there was something I should know, even if I did want to turn you away.”

“Yes, sooner is better than later. We should start off on even footing this time,” Christine agrees.

***

There are, she supposes, multiple ways to tell him, but the simplest seems the best.

“Gus, our son, is yours.”

Erik’s eyes go from her’s to Raoul’s and back again. He sits in stunned silence.

“How long have you known?”

“Since I first thought I might be pregnant.”

“And you… you both…”

Christine, hearing what he’s not saying, gets up from the chair across from him and sits on his lap as shaking arms close around her. Raoul curls himself around Erik in turn and between them, they hold their long lost love as he wraps his head around the news.

“But… he’s perfect. I watched him playing yesterday before I found Raoul,” Erik says, sounding shaken but amazed all the same.

Christine closes her eyes and presses her face into his chest. “I am so sorry for the way the world and I have treated you.”

“Were you not worried he might be…”

“No,” Raoul tells him firmly. “No. We vowed to love any children we would have as a parent should and let them know we all deserve a place in this world, no matter what. They can be whatever they want to be.” Their views were seen as radical by some in Paris but neither cared or gave it much thought.

Raoul has helped her to expand her view of the world and those in it. The opera houses and music halls, already a refuge for many, have made it easier and she’s come to understand some of those she’s worked with so much better because of it.

“Can I…”

“Meet him? Of course. Though, given that we want you to be truly part of our family, little Meg is yours too.”

“A daughter and a son.”

“A husband and a wife, if you can find anyone who’ll bless us when the time is right,” Raoul says softly.

None of them speak of the harsher truths and realities of what they want, that they’re very much at the start of something. No matter how much they might all want it, they must learn to be part of each other's lives properly and that will take time.

***

Meg meets them in the theatre that afternoon, Gus and little Meg with her. 

Christine hugs her friend tight. “Thank you so much.”

Meg grins. “You’re staying then? Not just for the season?”

“We’re staying.”

Meg claps her hands in glee. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” 

Christine hugs her again. “We couldn’t have done this without you,” she admits. “And I’ve missed you so much.”

“Hey, any time. I mean it.”

They look down with little Meg tugs and their dresses. “Mama, Auntie, who is that?”

Erik is stood a little ways back, just visible but in the shadow of the curtain.

“Someone very important that your papa and I want you to meet.”

“Oh.” She nods and immediately makes her way over to him, Gus following after her once he has the okay from Raoul.

***

“Hello,” The little girl says. “I’m Meg. Mama says you’re important.” Between her ringlets, dimples and very frilly clothes, she’s possibly one of the loveliest sights he’s ever seen. “This is my brother, Gus.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Gus offers his hand and Erik kneels down to take it. 

“I’m Erik. Welcome to my theatre.” Gus squeezes his hand and smiles at him, clearly impressed. Erik feels like he’s going to cry with the outpouring of love he has for him already.

“How come you wear a mask?” 

“Meg!” Gus chides.

“What? I can ask.”

“It’s alright. I was born with injuries that didn’t heal as I grew up and sometimes this side of my face,” he taps the mask. “Can be really scary for people so I like to keep it hidden.”

“Huh. Does it hurt?” Meg asks, tipping her head to the side and managing to look so much like her father it warms his heart.

“It used to but it’s gotten better. My arm hurts from time to time but that’s to be expected.”

“Papa has an injury from the war that hurts his leg in the winter, is it like that?” Gus asks.

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

He looks from the children to Christine and Raoul, chatting with Meg.

“If your parents agree I can show you the rest of the theatre?”

“There’s more?” Gus asks.

Erik nods. “Yes, much more. I like to invent and a lot of it is stored back here.”

“I’ll go and ask them,” Gus says, running off. Erik is captivated by him, by his own eyes that have been looking back at him. A lightness in him Erik doesn’t think he’s ever known.

Meg is smiling at him when he looks back and he finds the same outpouring of love he has for his son directed at her as well. He’d always wondered about parents who said they’d felt a deep and instant love for their children at birth, but it must feel something like this.

“If I asked really nicely and promised not to touch, would you let me see?”

“Are you sure? It’s not very nice to look at.”

Meg shrugs. “Mamma says beauty is always on the inside anyway.”

“You can have a quick peek but that’s all.”

“Okay.”

He raises the mask and she peers under it, he knows he looks far better now than a decade ago but it’s still scarred and ugly.”

“Huh,” Meg says when he lowers it again. Her eyes are a little wide but she doesn’t seem afraid.

“Are you alright?”

“I thought it would be more exciting,” she says.

Erik laughs and she giggles along with him.

“Mama and Papa said it’s fine, they asked me to tell you to be back by tea-time, and that you’re to join us.”

“Very well, let me show you my theatre,” he gives a small bow and pulls back the curtain to let them through.

Raoul catches his eyes with a smile and brief nod before it falls back behind them.

Meg immediately tugs on his trousers. “Can you pick me up?”

Gus laughs. “She always does this.”

“Papa said you did too when you were my age,” she protests.

Gus shrugs. “Probably, but I’m older now.” He looks at Erik as if to say ‘what can you do?’

Erik does, in fact, pick her up, glad of her weight on his hip. He doesn’t miss Meg’s pleased grin.

“It’s going to get a little narrow up here.”

Gus nods, and takes hold of his free hand as they make their way through into his world, his children along with him.

***

“Papa, you have got to see what’s back there. It’s amazing. Did you know Erik invented the carriage that collected us at the port?” Gus says once they’re back in the theatre.

“I did, yes. And I would love to see his other inventions. Did he tell you he wrote the music you were playing our first night here?”

“You did?” Gus turns to ask him.

“I did.” He looks a little overwhelmed and though Raoul would love to offer him comfort he also knows they must take it one step at a time with their children.

When they’re called over by Christine, he makes sure to leave his hand resting on Erik’s back as they make their way out of the theatre to the carriage outside.

***

Telling the children is easier than telling Erik, at least to start with.

“So, you and Papa love Erik too?”

“Yes, Meg.” She’ll likely need to be reminded over the coming days but she is only three.

“And. Um. He’s going to be staying with us?” Gus asks.

Erik looks from Gus to Christine. “Only,” he says. “If it’s alright with you.”

Gus takes a minute to think about this. He needn’t know that there are pathways and passages Erik’s already showed them that means he can be in their bedroom without the children knowing.

“Okay.”

Meg goes to bed after that but Christine holds Gus back, leaving him with Erik and Raoul as she puts their daughter to bed.

“Gus. Erik is your father.”

To his credit, Gus takes hold of Raoul’s hand. 

“I’m still your father as well, Gus. But your mother is right. We knew and loved Erik at the start of our relationship. You’re not losing a parent, my son, you’re gaining one.”

Gus, no doubt calling on what he knows of anatomy and biology, if the wrinkle of his nose is anything to go by, takes some time to think about this.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Erik says quietly. “I didn’t know until this morning.”

“You didn’t? Gus asks him.

“No. I left before your parents could tell me, before even they knew for certain. Yesterday is the first time in over ten years I’ve spoken to them.”

“Because of the fire at the opera house?” he asks, relaying the story he’s been told for years.

“Yes. It was to do with that.” And so much more but there are things their children never need - or will - know about.

“Do you want to be my father?”

“Yes. To you and your sister as well. But I don’t know how to be a good one. Your Papa will have to teach me.”

Gus leans into Raoul, who hugs his son close. “I know it’s a lot. You can sleep on it if you need to,” Raoul offers.

“No, it’s… it’s okay. It’s like when Meg was born. I got used to it and she’s my sister. Only I didn’t think it happened with parents.”

“It usually doesn’t. We’re a very special case.”

Gus gives his father a look. “Yes. I can’t say that any of my friends in Paris had three parents who all loved each other. But Marie has two mothers and no father so I suppose it happens sometimes.” His sarcasm has both men laughing without meaning to.

Gus smiles at them both.

“It’s okay, really. And your theatre is amazing.”

“I’m pleased you like it,” Erik tells him. 

“Will you teach me to make things too?”

“Yes. But we’ll start small.”

“Brilliant.” 

Gus looks up at Raoul. “I love you, Papa.”

“I know you do, my boy. But there’s always more love to go around.”

“This is it now though? No more parents? No one else you and Mama are looking for?”

“No.”

Gus stands up and walks over to where Erik is sitting on the other sofa.

“Goodnight, Papa,” he says to Erik and hugs him too. If they both hold each other tighter and for longer than they expected niether speak of it.

***

He’s crying.

They’re stood on the balcony of their apartments with the city spread before them and there are tears streaming down Erik's face.

His mask is on the small stone table along with what’s left of a bottle of champagne. 

He hears Christine’s soft gasp above the noise of the city below them finally winding down, feels her fingers brush away his tears, her lips kiss his cheeks.

“We cried when they were born,” Raoul says, wrapping his arms around him from behind and resting his chin on Erik’s shoulder.

“It’s not… that’s part of it.” 

Meg, who he thinks he’s been seeing as a sister for years now, has tried to let him know it’s okay to be part of the world, that his past should stay just that. She’s been there for him, laughed, and cried with him and taught him not to fear human touch so much - not from those he’s come to trust.

But he feels like he’s grieving for everything he’s missed out on, whilst knowing he would have destroyed it if he’d never let them escape.

Christine tucks herself into his side. “Erik?” she asks, her voice soft and soothing.

He shakes his head, not able to articulate everything he’s feeling. Instead, he holds Christine closer and presses his hand over Raoul’s on his waist.

“Erik, my love,” Raoul murmurs a while later. “We have time.”

He nods and chokes back on the emotion locking up in his throat.

Christine starts to hum a familiar song and when Raoul joins in he realises he knows it.

It takes him longer to understand that in this version there’s a harmony missing; one he’d not noticed before.

He clears his throat as quietly as he can and manages to join in with the missing part. His loves hold him tighter between them and although he’s still crying, it’s more from happiness than sorrow.

***

**Epilogue**

It’s been a couple of months and Erik is still somewhat finding his feet.

Children are exhausting. Wonderful and brilliant - full of love and kindness, questions and stories of which there seems to be no end, but he finds he loves them so much more than he thought he could.

Raoul and Christine have split their time between rehearsals and him, making sure he knows he’s welcome into their lives. He supposes he cannot help but feel as though he’s intruding but more and more he’s coming to understand that they’ve been yearning for it to be the three of them for such a very long time.

Raoul asked them to sing for him a week ago and it ended with the three of them tumbling into Erik’s bed, where they stayed for hours.

Whilst Christine is in rehearsals and the children are either with their tutors or Meg (if she’s not rehearsing as well), Raoul spends his time with Erik.

They argue - he and Christine spitting fire at each other until one of them storms out or tries to drag Raoul into it. But they’re learning not to poke at each other so much and talk things through.

Sometimes they sit and read in the same space, others Erik shows him the world he’s created.

They’re in his rooms that afternoon when Christine joins them, the children with Meg for the night.

“Working hard?” she asks.

Raoul is half asleep on Erik’s lap, his book having fallen to the floor. Erik has been taking him through the meditation techniques he’s learnt in the hopes they help and despite it being early days, he is getting more sleep than he’s had in years.

Erik turns and accepts a kiss from Christine, who sits in his lap once Raoul has woken enough to instead snuggle up against Erik’s side.

“I’ll call for dinner in a while, anything you want to do this evening?” he asks them.

“Would it be alright if I said sleep? Christine asks, already knowing the answer.

Erik chuckles. “Sounds lovely.”

Raoul’s rumble of agreement feels lovely against his skin.

Sometimes life can be gentle and slow, moments of rest. He thinks back on the monster he used to be with sorrow and regret, and wonders if things would have been different if he’d know this was what his future held. Or if he’d have wanted it.

“Erik?” Christine asks, sounding concerned.

“I was only thinking, that’s all.”

“Alright.” She kisses his cheek and settles down properly against him and Raoul.

He doesn’t think it matters what he wanted then, he wants it now, and he’s loved them for so long it’s an added layer of joy to be able to share it with them and their children.

An unusual family, but a family none the less.

fin


End file.
